We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.ContinueFind out more

Definition of Pakeha in English:

Pakeha

Pronunciation: /ˈpäkəˌhä//ˈpäkēˌä/

noun

‘In the same speech he uttered the weighty words ‘Maori and pakeha are both indigenous people to New Zealand now‘.’

‘He ignores all the advantages pakeha have inherited: wealth and land, and also dominance, confidence, privilege, and a society that is set up to convenience us.’

‘I am still in a dilemma of how, as a pakeha, to present this relationship and history.’

‘The latest New Zealand Census-Mortality Study shows that Maori die younger than pakeha, even after controlling for socioeconomic status.’

‘So it's a mystery why, unique in the world, some European New Zealanders refer to themselves as pakehas - an insulting name originally applied by the Maoris to the fair-skinned Imperialists who were in the process of conquering them!‘.’

‘Haast named the pass after himself and claimed to be the first pakeha to have travelled through it, but the discovery of Cameron's flask discredited this claim.’

adjective

Relating to white New Zealanders and their languages and culture.

‘There were storytellers on both the Maori and the pakeha sides of my family.’

‘Maori families are larger than those of the pakeha, or white, population.’

‘From what friends and family tell me this has split the Maori and pakeha camps and is causing bitter resentment.’

‘His book details his family's land battles, his brother's notorious murder charge and his uneasy existence in a two-sided world (born of a Maori father and a pakeha mother).’

‘Her ideas were both challenging and threatening to many pakeha New Zealanders who were, and are, often ignorant of the country's history and fearful of difference.’